On a recent reporting trip, Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd and Chris Bentley stopped in Clarksdale, Mississippi, a town known as the birthplace of the blues. They speak with Mayor Orlando Paden, who runs the blues club Red's, and Shelley Ritter, executive director of the Delta Blues Museum. 

Then, music journalist Betto Arcos goes to Bentonia, Mississippi, to get a music and history lesson from a storied musician and owner of one of the region's remaining juke joints.

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New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found Americans consume more than half of their calories from ultra-processed food. Cleveland Clinic dietitian Julia Zumpano explains the health implications.

And, President Trump’s new round of tariffs took effect Thursday, with more on the way. MSNBC’s Ali Velshi unpacks what this means for global trade.

Then, a new alert system in Arizona, called Turquoise Alerts, works to address a crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people in the state. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio shares what this means for tribal communities.

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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is cutting nearly $500 million in funding for the development of mRNA vaccines that are used to fight COVID-19 and the flu. Dr. Paul Offit joins us to discuss what the move could mean for vaccine research and development.

Then, the Department of Transportation is raising concerns about airlines using artificial intelligence to set ticket prices based on customers' personal information. Transportation analyst Seth Kaplan talks about how AI could show up in ticket prices.

And, Microsoft watches over the data of government agencies like the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. Last month, Microsoft announced a Chinese state-sponsored hack on those accounts. ProPublica's Renee Dudley tells us more.

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Democratic lawmakers in Texas left the state to prevent a vote on redrawing the state’s congressional maps. The redrawn maps would create five more winnable U.S. House districts for Republicans. Democratic Texas state Rep. Armando Walle talks about where Democrats go from here.

And, as the school year is about to start back up, Michigan’s education budget and federal funding changes are creating uncertainty for districts in the state. Katy Xenakis-Makowski, superintendent of Johannesburg-Lewiston Area Schools, shares more about how uncertainty is impacting her district.

Then, Martha Barnette — co-host of “A Way with Words” — joins us to talk about her new book “Friends with Words,” where she explores word origins and her own love of language.

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Texas House Democrats fled the state in a bid to block a new congressional district map. The proposed redistricting would create five new Republican-leaning seats in the House. Texas Newsroom's Lauren McGaughy tells us more. Then, on Friday, President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after the July jobs report showed job growth had stagnated. We speak with former BLS Commissioner under Trump's first term, William Beach, who believes the move undermines credibility in the government's economic statistics. And, the first several seasons of "The Simpsons" revolutionized primetime TV, blazed a trail for animated comedy. Alan Siegel talks about his new book, "Stupid TV, Be More Funny: How the Golden Era of The Simpsons Changed Television — and America — Forever."


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AI is fueling the stock market, sending the value of tech companies like Nvidia and Microsoft into the stratosphere. This week, Microsoft's market valuation surged past $4 trillion. That's nearly the GDP of India. Roben Farzad, host of the podcast "Full Disclosure," explains Microsoft's role in the competition. And, Nvidia — which makes microchips for AI — recently hit the same valuation milestone of $4 trillion. Chris Miller, author of the book "Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology," explains why Nvidia is gaining so much traction so fast and what it says about the value of chips.

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The Commerce Department reported on Wednesday that the U.S. economy grew at a 3% annual rate last quarter. That growth is smaller than it was last year. The Financial Times' Rana Foroohar joins us to put things in perspective. Then, former pardon attorney Liz Oyer explains why she thinks it would be "unprecedented" for President Trump to pardon convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell for her crimes, as Trump continues to downplay his one-time friendship with her accomplice Jeffrey Epstein. And, conventional wisdom says a one-page resume is the best bet for job seekers, but that may no longer be the case thanks to AI. Wall Street Journal columnist Callum Borchers explains.

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A recent executive order from President Trump calls for sending some mentally ill or addicted homeless people to involuntary treatment, known as civil commitment. Los Angeles homelessness expert John Maceri explains more. And, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers are calling for Trump to address the hunger crisis in Gaza. Nahal Toosi, senior foreign affairs correspondent with Politico, unpacks how the U.S. attitude toward Israel's war in Gaza is shifting. Then, after Harvard University freshman Sarah Silverman's mezuzah went missing from her dorm doorway, the police investigated the incident as a "bias crime," and Trump cited it as a civil rights law violation. Silverman joins us to explain why she thinks Trump's crackdown on Harvard and other universities does not curb antisemitism.

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The Trump administration is trying to overturn the EPA's endangerment finding, which determined that greenhouse gas emissions can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Lisa Heinzerling, former senior climate policy counsel to the EPA administrator, joins us to discuss what this could mean for the U.S. government's efforts to fight climate change. Then, some of the homes still standing after fires tore through Southern California earlier this year are too toxic to live in. We speak with two Altadena homeowners about their experiences. And, the semicolon has been described as a "graceful pause" in writing. But this graceful punctuation mark is being forgotten. The Washington Post's Mark Lasswell talks about what the semicolon is for and what it means that it's fading away.

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President Trump announced a new trade deal with the European Union that places a 15% tariff on most exports to the U.S. Bloomberg's Lionel Laurent explains why the EU backed down from a looming trade war. And, humanitarian organizations warn of an impending famine in Gaza if the situation on the ground continues, with little aid allowed into the region by Israel. Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, breaks down what it would take for a famine to be declared. Then, President Trump has received a significant amount of support from Evangelical Christians. But not all Christians are on board with Trump's policies. Pastor Derwin Gray of the Transformation Church describes how he's working to lead his church through political division.

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